We all are cowards

The point Angad wanted to make wasn’t about how he thought he would see through the task, but how it would affect the way he was thinking. It is really tough certain times how does someone really accepts the procedure implemented to perform. “According to this flowchart we can reduce time consumption by almost 30% and hence we can save at least 5 days which can be implemented then for review of all the tasks performed and that would be plenty of time”. Most of the times his presentations and his methodologies were successful, and if he failed then much to everyone’s surprise he would fix it on time and earn accolades from everyone.

The problem that hurt him the most was lack of motivation. Tasks as every other employee would come to him, he would take the problem, he had his own approach to solve it and ultimately with dedication and seriousness he would solve it. Life was really simple as he knew it and he had accepted it that way. A year ago he was a fresh blood, out of college and ready to accept challenges in life, and that he thought, while he didn’t know that he very carefully avoided all of them.

Campus placements are a shortcut, accepting science at class 12th was opening shortcuts and a considering the modern educational methods where one night study before the exam turns out to be sufficient for passing with good marks everything seemed to be a shortcut. Rather it is indeed a shortcut. He was young then, I don’t know what I have to do, that he thought then, and perhaps he was right, Indian kids really don’t know then what do they really want. Flowing with the stream was the best option. The problem with flowing with the stream was, is and probably it will be a problem forever would be it makes you lazy, and life keeps going on in a simplistic ordinary way. Dreams aren’t really substantial in modern world, there are responsibilities and expectations. The laziness that seeps inside a human beings mind leads to an ‘I don’t care’ attitude that in long run is so disastrous that one doesn’t really want to fight. The straight things that come to them are accepted and anything new that cones our way that would bring about a significant change in our life, it becomes tough to accept it. In simplistic attitude even emotions are suppressed and feelings really do not matter.

 The lazy stream of life has his own shares of highs and lows, sometime people do matter and most of the times they matter when they can listen to you. In awkward monotony, suppressed emotions keep surfacing and then again they are ignored. For a youngster attraction wasn’t a new thing, it happens at every level, whenever someone who can stand by your side, and people would gossip about one’s girlfriend or boyfriend, who can possibly be your status symbol, emotions surface. Sometimes feelings are more related to physical attraction and demands while sometimes they are genuine but that’s rare, and many times it is a combination of all of them, while the last one is fairly less effective, but sure it does play role. After certain period, there is only the last one when there is no one to talk to, and that was not Angad’s case. It never mattered if she would be with him then he would be happy. Angad knew that very well, that that would not change anything. He would continue to be frustrated and she would turn out to be just another shoulder on which he would cry and that was not what he wanted. If he had to cry then he would prefer his parents over his girlfriend. But not always, he felt, everything his parents should know. Sometimes, he would as simply lie about things without taking them up. He could not do what he wanted to, many things, he could not for example focus on his immediate plan. As if he had no immediate plan, everything he wanted to do, he felt, it was to impress someone else. And he, whatever he did, did succeed a couple of times and everyone around him thought it was easy and started doing the same thing and he lost his own motivation. So simple it is, in life, to see someone else succeed and feel it is easy to do it. Angad, had lost reason to fight. Life was easy, so what if it was the wrong path, it was easy, in a couple of years, he would be rich, and he’d have a family of his own. He knew that time will teach him the rights and wrongs in his way that he has chosen. Many times inside office he simply thought, rather tried to, where he is headed. He never had a single answer. He looked around, people around him did what others did so that they got promoted, everyone wanted to talk and prove their importance. Youngsters flirted with their colleagues. Few of them did exactly the way he thought he would, in order to talk to that girl, probably their motivation was same as his was.
He looked around and saw most of the Indians, talked and tried real hard to make an impact in their lives. Talking was the simplest way it seemed, doing something about it needed real effort, and effort needed devotion and devotion needed soul and heart. Soul had lost importance, heart was faking emotions, it seemed so foolish that all of them dwelled in pity happiness’, things would start inside a cubicle and end there. Probably it was an easy way out, no one cared about you, you never cared about anyone. You don’t want to fight and be afraid of rules meant to be broken and follow those rules. No one wants to stand up and pickup a fight, life is easy and is accepted to be so, and perhaps, it explains that we all are cowards and remain that and all we can do is talk, because that is the easiest way of making an impact.

Ends to ends and a coward

The problem with Jaideep was he could not speak. At one moment he might be thinking about the plan and at the other moment the consequences and would question the possible positive outcome because almost certainly every time something negative would distract him from taking a step forward. Commitments and promises are done without conditions and there are conditions and circumstances that lead to breaking those promises and commitments. Inside a glass walled structure there are cubes and inside those cubes there are human beings who work and carry on, but passion slowly goes down as monotony seeps inside and emotions become less substantial and life is less problematic. The outcome of this is that in reality as well people tend to avoid problems let it be of any kind and hence people avoid any kind of a change. In engineering, it is meticulously observed that any system if subjected to a sudden change has a transient response, perhaps, that is responsible in human behavior and emotional fluctuations as well. Many times people ask a straight question, for instance, what is the time?  And in response if the guy has become cold enough, after travelling a suitable distance of patience, and passing the test of, time, he might very coldly respond with expression which cheats nothing, in order to pretend to be humorous, it’s really bad time man, it’s really bad. A straight scenario and situation could not be seen without a teaspoonful of salt, questioning about the outcome and truth of situations and framers of language coined a term to it and called it skepticism.

While emotions, on the other hand, had posed another challenge in front of him. Three times, including this one he had felt about it in a similar fashion. Every time he had waited long enough only to express so late that nothing could be done or happened. Falling for someone is a strange phenomenon, Ram Gopal Varma, a Hindi film director, rightfully blogged about it. He wrote that falling in love with a girl who lives across the street has more possibility rather than falling in love with a heroine. Perhaps the truth in that statement is so powerful that it is faced by the newer generation almost every now and then in every phase of his life, whether it is school, college or professional. And since Zuckerberg invented Facebook, too much of psychology and reality goes in to the status updates that leave losers and cowards even more fearful of many things that future in life will probably offer. One of his friends shared an update which quoted “Arranged marriage is a rubbish theory, if you are a coward and think that is your only way out, well, register it deep somewhere that your future wife could be having fun with a womanizer”.

It was this, whole hearted reality and unadulterated knowledge that was served on Face book and Internet, which he could bite with a slobbering desperate mind, and this time was probably the first time when his emotions fueled with worldly materialistic knowledge were able to counter his ability to question every truth and goodness in this natural world. But he would not step ahead as cowards are meant to be like that and more over what they can at most do is, affect their own genuine friendships and people around them in reciprocation of sentiments which hold good and might be genuine, or because Facebook and Twitter and blogs are there people like him become small time writers, sometimes to generate sympathy, or maybe hoping that another girl might find it genuine and if she is good looking and perhaps likes it then that would be a start and losers can take a step forward to be a winner.

But Jaideep would fail to realize those genuine sentiments and continue to be someone sitting in the corner of the cafeteria and notice and observe the one he thinks he is fond of, actually he knows it, but most of the times he tries to deceive himself. It really is disheartening in these days of internet and facebook and blogs where there are many shortcuts to impress others, it is so disappointing that youngsters, more educated have less fierceness to face themselves and to confide to someone or express their affection. Earlier it was so, that people were less educated and perhaps more intelligent to recognize the rights and wrongs, and in the generation of truth when there was no facebook, people could really look into the eyes of the desired and the other side could read it and reciprocate. But there lays the problem, an eye contact is asking too much, and as far as people like Jaideep were concerned, it was a nightmare.

How important is an eye contact, is another remarkable reality, but the easy way is put it into words, and that is not a handwritten note that could as well find its way somewhere deep inside the other one’s could and connect to it, but it has now turned into keyboards and messages, either status or text where people might like it, or probably could ignore it as well by not commenting to it or replying to the text messages. So shortcuts to emotions, that are digital now, isn’t as effective, even handwritten notes can falter and even fail and get ignored but an eye contact is not at all ignorable.

So, here he is, Jaideep, his cowardice, his sentiments and the indispensable valuable education he received from social networking media, and his corner in the cafeteria and his coffee, that is complementary, it is not trivial to mention the free coffee because with his income anything that is for free is important, and that with a bad throat and reasonably cold winter morning presents a bliss. If you visit your office, early in the morning, and then you are relatively free and don’t have much to do on your desk, and things are pretty easy with your life then mind starts playing with you and that’s what happened with him.

Early mornings in cafeteria is fairly empty, very few people here and there could be counted on fingers, are present in plain sight. Now this leads to the mind playing with the character. The cafeteria, most of it is empty, what if she comes and sits somewhere, now she is she because Jaideep doesn’t know who is she and what’s her name and his mind continues to play with him, what if she notices I am here, what if the color of my shirt isn’t what attracts her attention towards me, what if she comes and leaves without noticing me, and she comes in, takes her coffee and, oh my GOD,  now Jaidev doesn’t really believe in god as his logic doesn’t accept it, but this randomness is perhaps an explanation of the statement that ‘God can make even stones speak’,  run Jai, Run or you will do something stupid and leave a terrible impression, oh, ok you might make her notice, but no, no impression is better than bad impression, see, how mind plays, coffee isn’t over, you might spill, okay finish it, Jai, stop staring, oh and of course, while Jai’s mind was trying to create a havoc, he was staring at her all the time, Jai, if she by chance considers you as a stalker, then it’s done, and all your dreams and fantasies will go down underground in all this turmoil, stop it, stop staring, Jai wanted this to happen and it happened, his brain failed his heart took over and, stop it, NO I WON’T, he countered his mind and, this could be the last time I see her alone and otherwise she is always with another girl or a bunch of them and that could be the end…., and she this time raised her gaze, their gazes met, they had, a news reporter would say, a disaster, Shakespeare would say tragedy, well he could say comedy as well, while most of us normal people would say, an eye contact.

That was probably a good thing to happen but it was criminally short, she noticed his stare, clenched her eyebrows, in suspicion, or that was meanness, or that was a response which communicated, hey stalker you made me freak out, set your eyes off me, well, there are more possibilities to it, even good ones, but that only she can explain and occupied a table somewhere in his line of sight, but Jaideep was stunned and extremely embarrassed, to such an extent that he wanted to go up and apologize, but that was a bad idea as he had a past. In past, out of sheer curiosity, he got a really sensationally good looking girl’s phone number, no he didn’t get the phone number out of curiosity that was more out of desperation, out of curiosity how does it feel when a guy calls a girl who doesn’t know him and he wondered how did guys impressed girls over a phone call and he wanted to try that. So he called and he got nervous, so he blabbered something stupid and got insulted, so he was similarly embarrassed then and called back to apologize and again blabbered non sense and got insulted to such an extent that this day he could not gather courage to go up and say sorry for his gesture. Better, he decided that he committed a disaster and this story doesn’t have an ending to it, and decided to drop it there and then.

But the scenario was scintillating, it was early winter morning, cafeteria was pretty less crowded, so if he really committed blunder, no one would notice and it would be covered up easily. Nothing wrong in seeing, isn’t it, he thought, and stupid human nature to hell with it, he considered it a blunder and did it, and suddenly she kept her coffee breathed out, Jai was staring at her, and she crossed her hands, Jai was staring at her, placed her crossed hands on the table, Jai was still staring at her,  she moved her head upwards, Jai was as usual, she looked outside the cafeteria on her right while he would be on her left, Jai was easily continuing with his stupidity, and turned left and Jai was staring at her.

Now she noticed him, it is unnecessary to say that so he did, he was doing that, it seemed since eternity, then she looked down at the table, noticed her coffee, lifted her cup took a sip, while doing that, she didn’t lift her head, she gazed in his direction, he was still noticing her, his face didn’t betray any emotion, he was flat, but he was staring, she blinked and returned to her cup of coffee and put it back. For some time she looked down, she looked up, in his direction, also she didn’t move her head only her gaze, and it’s better that we avoid mentioning what Jai was doing when he was sitting there, then she quickly looked down, and slowly she looked up and their gazes met, and they had, what a news reporter would say, global recession, Shakespeare would say Romance, while most of us normal people would say, a long eye contact. And at last she blinked, in between she blinked as well but could not remove her eye sight off him, but this time she looked down, finished her coffee, stood up, gazed back again, then turned around and left, Follow me, Now it could have meant that, but out hero, Jai, even though he partially decoded it, he got nervous and rather thought that he led to a mutual embarrassment, and he decided that he would not face her again and rather avoid a similar situation, even if she wanted me to follow her and talk to her, how would I start the conversation, I have never in my life talked to a girl purely because of such circumstances or simply talking to talk!, this was another thing  that crossed his mind.

So, Jaideep decided to avoid such a situation, if he’d see her in cafeteria, he’d make sure she doesn’t find him, if she’d see him he’d act, I’m a dead man walking, lost in my own dreamland. This happened for weeks, Jai had dropped it, there is no way she’d be thinking about me, and probably she never did, he was thinking this while he was having his chicken burger meal and that is really cheap in cafeteria and satisfying, the only thing that is dissatisfying is the crowded cafeteria  during lunchtime, after 1:15. Too much noise is sometimes distracting and the guy eating in front of you is so impatient sometimes, that he makes more noise with his cutlery rather than using it to eat. Inside crowded cafeteria, it becomes difficult to find a place to sit, and many times it happens that even if there are empty chairs, and someone asks that are these occupied, to their dismay, usually the empty seats are occupied. Cafeteria is a nice place beyond work as well, apart from Jaideep’s romantic encounters there are other interesting things that happen as well. For example gossiping, that if listened to carefully are damn seriously done but unintentionally extremely hilarious. It is quite observable that grownups’ jealousy is as pure as that found in a 3^rd standard a kid, who is jealous of his classmate because he might be a particular teacher’s favorite because of his or her handwriting. So this jealousy is an emotion that defines envy which leads to enmity and enemy’s enemy is a friend. But there are reasons of friendship other than that as well and people prefer to eat with friends. So its usual that one or 2 empty chairs doesn’t solve the purpose. Usually a minimum of 4 are needed on a table. So Jai was enjoying French fries with coke with chicken burger on a 6 chaired table, and most of them like him preferred eating alone. Apart from him all of the others finished their lunch and vacated 5 chairs, and immediately someone with pure and very sweet voice asked him “Do you mind?”, Jai looked up a very ordinary and simple with clearly defined girlish expression was asking whether they could use that place, and Jai didn’t have any problem with that, how could he, the girl was just okay, and there was nothing in her that he should be conscious about, she was just another girl everyone sees every day and  she called her friends to join her.

Suddenly 4 other girls came and joined in at that table and one of them turned out to be her, well, HER. Like those capital letters his eyes became when he found out and she sat right in front of him, and once again that happened, what a news reporter would say, Rainstorm in winters, okay a weather reporter would say that, Shakespeare would say Comedy of Errors and us normal people would say a mere coincidence, but they had an eye contact, and since she was with the her friends, she was soon distracted with chuckles and giggles and jokes and poor jokes and she got involved with it. Jai avoided as many eye contacts, while she turned and did leave a serious glance before temporarily returning to her friends with inconsistent frequency, but this dude would look only into his burgers and coke and French fries. She removed ID Card from around her neck and kept it on table, in order to avoid it interfering her lunch and seeing her other girls did so, and she smiled, that he noticed, she didn’t remove it because it would mess with her food and disturb she did it because she wants me to know her name, and she smiled because her friends got the wrong meaning, maybe, maybe he was right, but he didn’t do the right, he didn’t first of all betray a single emotion, secondly he didn’t even turned his neck to read her name. He was plain emotionless as a robot eating burger in fixed pattern and strict monotone. He finished his lunch, stood up in perfect coordination turned around, she looked up and sighed and then returned to her friends.

It was this absurd chain of events, that she looked perplexed, but at the last step of the last hurdle all his skepticism seeped in, like in the film Margin call there is quotation when three characters are standing at the rooftop of a skyscraper, one of them crosses the railing and says, “you know at this height, the greatest fear a human being has, it is not the fear of falling, it is the fear whether he might jump off from it”. Perhaps it was a similar fear that crept in, he thought he might end up falling hard and hurt and maybe she does too, that he stood up and decided that may be he isn’t confident enough, maybe it’s a mistake or maybe he would take it and find her again, or maybe someone else when he is more confident, and maybe she finds someone else more confident. But who knows, tomorrow things may change, he is here and she is here and ends aren’t an ending and cowards have to face their worst fear someday, and maybe there is a new beginning, because God may or may not exist but such situations do make atheists vulnerable.

Awkward Estrangement

Vikas did not think of trees could be terrifying, he was a sadist, yes, the one who relies on guilty pleasures of life, teasing, seeing someone hurt or crying in wane, someone grieving over loss, teasing someone weak, who can’t help. The problem with society is they dig on a dead man’s grave, beat the dead body and leave the remains. Vikas wasn’t a typically social human being, but today he was trapped inside a cabin by the woods. Vikas was out on excursion, with him a friend and teacher Anurag who was listening to music on his mp3 player with his girlfriend outside his own cabin, there was a bonfire at a distance. It has become a necessity  now when you are done with your life in the hush and noise of cities, you have to take a break, resort to a place where you aren’t bothered about anything, let it be food, laundry, traveling, commutation, a good package and everything can be taken care of.

Green Velvet Resorts was a fine place, a bit costly, but everyone can manage that these days, income is sufficient. They got their huts rented, each hut was pretty distant from another one, inside forests that could be spooky but it is fun, most of the times, and that forest wasn’t known for wild animals but for birds. It was built by the side of a bird sanctuary and was fenced, no such threat otherwise but snakes and lizards can’t be avoided there. Long and dense vegetation seemed to calm down with violet evenings. It was soothing, green leaves, blue-velvet sky, white petals spread on the ground. Little area was cleared for the hut so in that premises sky was clear of trees and shadows that would filter out light from evening sun, so a fine streak of orange light was visible in the sky. Paths were also made by removing patches of trees these paths connected one hut to another and to the manager office, so it looked like trees then like a broken tooth from a jaw a gap that was a path, then trees and so on. Dwelling places were huts but they called it cabins, no one ever knew why or cared. May be earlier writers would come and write stories and each one preferred his own and would have booked the same hut every time, but that’s just a presumption. Vikas booked one in between the woods, he had an option to book one next to Anurag’s who preferred lake view and in summers he could see sunrise quite early every day, and this was dusk, so Anurag had a chair, a big one, his girlfriend sitting on his lap, almost lying on him while he was listening. Silence had its own beauty and charm, thought Vikas.

He took the 3^rd path counting from his left, it led to cabins by the lake. Paths were meticulous beauty, halogen lamps turned on, on the ground they put some yellow plants on either sides, so their flowers and petals would highlight that path. That way it looked bright yellow, so by now, it was dark sky, green leaves of trees, there they had put bulbs as well, then woods and then yellow corridors. He walked down that path, slowly he realized it was dark, and leaves deep in the dark rattled. Now this could be some small animal, rabbit, rodent, but Vikas freaked out. So he started walking faster. Now he was walking on petals and dead leaves so they started making sound as well and that animal probably freaked out by that and it started running so a cumulative effect was pretty scary and Vikas started running and suddenly ended up on the other end where the 2 of them were sitting who got baffled. Anurag’s girlfriend Chhavi who was constantly irritated by Vikas’ sadist jokes giggled after noticing the afraid look on Vikas’ face. “Ohh freaked out, kiddie, now you won’t pee without Papa standing by the side?” Chhavi was rarely mean, but somehow she had fun whenever Vikas was weak in anyway. Vikas had a high pulse rate at that moment and his angst triggered another poor joke, “And, I didn’t know you had incest feelings”, Chhavi realized it was foolish of her to talk to him she gazed in another direction with clenched eyebrows. Vikas took pleasure in that stupid victory, smirked.

Anurag didn’t know how to react, he turned Chhavi’s face towards his, and made a gesture, to express not to be bothered by this loser. Chhavi squinted in the direction where Vikas was standing, then returned to her boyfriend, decoded the gesture and relaxed & restored her original posture, but this time with her face in the opposite direction. The lights on the trees were lighting up the evening and suddenly there was power cut, so the bonfire was the only lighting source and Vikas freaked out all over again, spouted slangs and Chhavi Burst out laughing along with Anurag, they both relaxed and retained their posture all over again, no one said anything after that.

Vikas pulled a chair from their cabin and sat across them. It was a remote area, so power cuts were normal but usually it happened in day time when they went for rock climbing, boating etc. so they didn’t notice it, manager had already told them that this might happen and they were well discounted for that as well. So, power supply was not resuming for the next 2 hours, while Vikas had freaked out and couple had lightened, the best thing they could do is talk in that darkness lit by the fire. Somehow people enjoy that more than anything. And many times intruding each others’ brains was such a pleasure. Sometimes people talk so that they could defeat the war of words and set an impression in front of everyone, such that they would praise him or her behind his back. Few of them are ready for being the “bitched about” topic. Few of them talk to impress girls if there is a gang, few of them talk out of the obsession, while some intend to share their angst but aren’t ready to accept others’, the “Let me speak and I don’t care who else wants to” kind. For that you need a gathering, here it was a relatively smaller one, 3 people, but 3 have enough to talk for, for the next 2 hours.

But having a couple is a problem. They won’t talk, they dwell in some kind of unsaid happy scenario, and would enjoy sitting, just that and as if they were talking but were not speaking, wireless communication marvel, Vikas being an engineer, thought. It was silence, crickets were chirping but it was silence. Pleasure, Vikas thought and relaxed on his chair. The Chair was a short in height, slanting backrest armchair. Pretty comfortable, on a similar one on the opposite sat Anurag, on him his girlfriend sat, almost lying with her head facing right, on his chest, right hand on the pocket, her eyes were almost closed, her left hand around his waist one earphone in his right ear another one in her left ear, which was not visible. Vikas was simply seeing the fire, it was on his right, he didn’t have a thought, but wanted to talk, may be to interrupt their romance and attract their attention towards him, but he thought otherwise rather decided to keep quit, and, he sighed.

That’s it, they got interrupted, wherever they were and whatever they were talking without speaking, they left it unconsciously behind, forgot it and returned to the woods, and came to their senses that they are having a power cut. “Shameless you guys”, Vikas took that opportunity to speak out and feel as if they all were together and he too existed, that when he was looking at the fire and throwing leaves into it. This is a necessary evil in human beings, proving existence in front of others even when others know you, perhaps that is sometimes a foundation for success in life. But most of the times people have strange behavior, one who listens exists for the speaker, the speaker who is impressive exists for the listener and rest aren’t really substantial. To some extent, grownups have same desires and fears as those of children, slightly modified may be, but yes they do. On Vikas’ quotation, the couple was perplexed, Chhavi sat upright in attention, they looked at him as he threw leaves and wood into the fire and then he turned around and met their confounded gaze, he couldn’t resist the temptation to speak as the other 2 waited for a following statement, “I am here guys, you know”, he waited for few moments and then carried on, “I am alive, and I am bored and I don’t have a better half to me as you do”. Chhavi relaxed and Anurag smiled as they again returned to their original postures, but Anurag took this opportunity and speak up, as the 3 of them relaxed on their backs, Chhavi and Anurag were now facing Vikas, “What freaked you out when you were coming?”

“Some sounds, rattling ones, as if someone was chasing me”

 “that could be a rat or a rabbit or something else”

“He freaked out, and that was a sight, his face” Chhavi interfered as she chuckled. Chhavi was really, really cute, sometimes Vikas wondered if he liked her, and most of the times he did, and his poor sadist jokes were an attempt to show off a sense of humor he never had and so he usually irritated rather than impress.

“Ohh yeah, you might have fainted had you been there in that long scary pathway”, Vikas can’t let go of his ego and if someone jokes about anything related to him he would respond in an awkwardly twisted way, and Anurag being a teacher behaves as the peacemaker, so he spoke “Who asked you stay there, you had an option to book a cabin nearby, but no, you asked for isolation” “Isolation, hah, strange it is”, Chhavi added to his point and carried on “Now get spooked, you deserve it”. She is nice, he thought, his foolishness opened up her meanness, he looked into those woods, lit in a flickering manner, he could barely find the path but couldn’t see through it, it was dark on the other end as well. He turned back, faced them and said “I don’t know, you might call it strange, but that’s how I enjoy”

“Make sadist jokes, stay away, give others a creepy feeling and let them think what you might be thinking, it pleases you doesn’t it”, she somehow judged it the first time she met him. Sometimes few human beings can see through the other human beings, sometimes when they think a lot about the other one. It leads to multiple conclusions sometimes and sometimes few are right and sometimes all of them, but seldom wrong, it depends on the one evaluating and the one who is evaluated. This guy won’t speak the truth and that’s the only problem, she had thought many times before and the best way to get him normalized is the hard way, be rude and practical! And she concluded it right, when she spoke what she did, Vikas had to be uncomfortable, and he could not comprehend what struck him, he looked away, dark woods, he didn’t have a thought he was just seeing the woods, trying to build a response but he couldn’t, his mind was devoid of thoughts. “No one listens to you? Isn’t it?” That one line she said left him bewildered, he turned around, Anurag was smiling, she had discussed it before with him, but he wasn’t the right guy to normalize Vikas, he was his friend he rather left it behind, Chhavi was waiting for the right occasion, “you feel estranged, from whom you don’t know, but you feel like that, and then you make others feel about it, so anyone else who is around you, that might generate curiosity and listen to or talk to you. Isn’t that true?”

“What are you saying?” Vikas replied,

“I am simply saying you need not stay there in that cabin, in isolation”, Chhavi was perhaps confident she struck the right cord. She is wearing rings in her right hand on the index finger, pinky and thumb and also she is having bangles around her right wrist, he still couldn’t decode it, it made him uncomfortable, he was trying hard to make up for it, but all he could see was what was there in his plain sight, not anything his mind could reproduce that he would reply, he just said to say, “Its better like that and let it be”, Vikas then looked away when rattling sounds could be listened again, he looked up following that sound, a cat came out of the woods and then went back in another direction. Things aren’t bad unless you take them to be so, as he turned around faced the other 2, this thought crossed his mind, as if they said it and he read it, but they didn’t speak. Vikas looked away, into the fire, for few minutes no one spoke a word, silence is peaceful, why did I even come up to talk to them, he thought, because you wanted someone who would talk to you, immediately invaded his mind. “So what is the plan for tomorrow?” Anurag could sense that it was done and now it is okay to drift to other things.

“Brochure says boating, it starts at 10:00, so we have to be ready by 9:00 and the bus will be ready to take us, other tourists who are here will be joining.” Vikas promptly replied and continued “I have special wide angle lenses so that I get to capture scenery and…” he was interrupted by the power supply which resumed and bulbs were glowing again, and after noticing that Vikas carried on “ and the power supply is back…. So I better go back and read something, and the 2 of you get special attention tomorrow on the boat as you guys look cool together but I won’t be shifting to a room nearby.” Chhavi and Anurag smiled to each other they resumed their original posture, Vikas stood up and as he moved across that path way, he heard a rattling sound, he waited to check in, a couple of squirrels ran jumped and climbed up a tree. Things aren’t bad unless you take them to be so, he turned around looked back, and the couple were sitting there, relaxing peacefully. He thought, maybe he knew that girl, would give him what he wanted, without being his girlfriend because he didn’t need one but someone to talk to him and she perhaps did, and maybe that’s why he joined them here.

HALLUCINATION

Robin and Peter were breathing inside one room. The room was made up of glass walls, with steel rods forming up most of the outlines and roof was white, pure white and whole city could be seen. There was not even a single door in plain sight, lest they find it. They didn’t know which city, they could see lights, as anyone would in the night, a city big or small is filled with light. Too much deceit a city offers. Most of the hoardings, billboards and advertisements nearby featured fair girls with text in English. So it could be anywhere, India, UK, US anywhere. Peter was last time in his office in Ohio, he ran off early last Thursday as he could remember. Robin, he worked late in Singapore, same company another office. They both had their Thursdays and went back home and they don’t remember what and when and where and how did they land up.  Hazy and unclear, Robin thought. “Peter, are you hungry?” Robin wasn’t sure, he was full of questions, but he asked this. While Peter kept wondering how Robin knew his name, he wasn’t sure how to react, he didn’t say anything, looked up, made an eye contact for a few moments and looked away deep into the city. Robin knew, his expression shouted confusion, and he wasn’t hungry. It’s so strange city functions not at all bothering about how a guy who might be sitting in the same car doesn’t matter to another one. Robin knew things, he knew that he would not be able to get out of this room and he would never feel hungry or need anything, but what really bothered him was, he didn’t want to try. His so called roommate didn’t make a movement till now and suddenly he spoke “em wonk uoy od woH?” , Robin spoke as if he knew it since he was born, “Green coloured ID with a black strap, unable to talk, stuck in his own feelings, Running away from work, lost, Peter, you have to be Peter….”. Peter was scared the very presence of such an awkward psychic wearing formals was unusual and he was stuck. Not that he was complaining, he couldn’t resist a response “peels ym lteas uoy dna ecneserp ruoy fo zuc deracs lleh ma I zuc, yddub, gnihtemos ro dog nikaerf uoY”. “I understand boy, even I have not slept in years, you know violence? It creeps up, and then you want to do something, really, really stupid but you want to live so you don’t wanna die and do things but you are stuck and then you want to sleep and you can’t, its creepy, I read that, I don’t want to scare you, but honestly I can’t get out of it, and I wanna stay inside it and I want to live but that I can’t, you know I am a coward and outside no one cares you live or you die, there is no one to talk to and you continue to be the only one amongst everyone and……”. Peter stands up, kicks him in the face and shouts “niboR!”, “what the…. What the hell are you doing man?” Robin tried to dodge him but he gets kicked hard in the face, “niboR, pu ekaw!!! Wake Up!!! Robin!!!” Peter shouted and kicked him in his face all over again, this time he almost had Peter’s sole in his face, he raised his hand to brush the sole Robin looked at his hand. The wonderful limousine had slowed down, traffic is troubling sometimes, Though Singapore government has managed it pretty well, but a vehicle has to slow down and wait at traffic signals, lights, a city in evening is always filled with lights, Robin was quite embarrassed. It took 30 minutes from office to the airport.

Both Peter and Robin were diametrically opposite yet same. Robin worked for long periods while Peter worked for shorter time periods, he got tired easily. The only problem with both of them was their own attitude. They clashed as if the two on either sides of the mirror wanted to strangle each other, but can’t as their finger tips got glued to each others’ and can’t help but stay and look at each other and scathe each others’ souls through eyes only, maybe that was their only way of satisfaction. But both couldn’t sleep well, as the matter of fact, one ran behind everyone, looking for happiness and the other one stayed and waited and waited and waited, killed time hoping that happiness would come to him, but a big city is a big city, isn’t it? The city doesn’t care how a guy who might be sitting in the same car doesn’t matter to another one.

Online!

Moments, life, actions
Friends, people, news
Family, Country, Religion
Opinion, Emotions
Eveything became words
Typed, not spoken, not thought
Not accumulated,
Not read
Through Books
Read
On screen
Of phone
Or computer
Everything,
This world
Distances
Emotions
Relations
Passion
Trimmed Down
To such small measures
Including thought process
And shortest of them became
Us Indians
Who grew up
With Shortcuts,
Lived with
And survived using
Shortcuts
And now,
Even affection lost genuinity
When communication
Got easy
We lost
The feeling of losing
Turned cold
Because
All emotions we had
Communicated through eyes
And speech and letters
Written in ink
All those emotions
Are now online!

Lost

There are lines
Words, poetry and prose
Text, context and meaning
Angst, agony and anguish
All leading to one
Simple conclusion
What do I look for
Where I am
Where will I reach
One step ahead
I don't know
One Step behind
Is the line stepped
Can't see
Can't feel
Too much to say
Too much to do
Yet nothing said
Yet nothing done
On that lonely seashore
There are lines
Words, poetry and prose
Angst, anguish and agony
Text, context and meaning
Too much to say
Too much to do
Yet nothing said
Yet nothing done
In all those contexts
And meanings and words
And ambitions and expectations
There is nothing to be said
And nothing to be done
All that energy
All those ideas
All that hope
Evrything seems lost